Uppenna or Upenna is a Tunisian archaeological site located on the site of the present locality of Henchir Chigarnia. The site has delivered a basilica and the remains of a fortress .

Location

The site is located at Henchir Fraga at 36° 09′ 57″n, 10° 25′ 01″e about 8 km north of Enfidaville,

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Archaeology

A Christian

baptistery In Christian architecture the baptistery or baptistry (Old French ''baptisterie''; Latin ''baptisterium''; Greek , 'bathing-place, baptistery', from , baptízein, 'to baptize') is the separate centrally planned structure surrounding the baptismal ...

was cleared by

René Cagnat René Cagnat (10 October 1852 – 27 March 1937) was a French historian, a specialist of Latin epigraphy and history of North Africa during Antiquity. Biography On the death of his father, Léon Renier, a friend of the family, supported his ...

in 1881. The fortress, classified March 25, 1889, was largely degraded thereafter. The discovery of 1881 was identified in 1901, by Paul Gauckler as belonging to a

basilica In Ancient Roman architecture, a basilica is a large public building with multiple functions, typically built alongside the town's forum. The basilica was in the Latin West equivalent to a stoa in the Greek East. The building gave its name ...

, however, it is not exhaustively searched for budgetary reasons. The church may have been built atop the foundations of a demolished pagan temple. The site was considered important by the excavators of the campaigns in 1904–1905, and focusing on this building allowed the discovery of about forty mosaics, the main one is the mosaic of martyrs which led to a major controversy between Gauckler and Dr. Louis Carton, recovering a conflict between the Antiquities Department and the Archaeological Society of Sousse. Indeed, the mosaic citing thirteen African martyred saints led to a debate on the place of the monument in the

Donatist Donatism was a Christian sect leading to a schism in the Church, in the region of the Church of Carthage, from the fourth to the sixth centuries. Donatists argued that Christian clergy must be faultless for their ministry to be effective and t ...

schism.

Bishopric

Roman Empire - Africa Proconsularis (125 AD)

The Diocese of Uppenna, is an ancient episcopal seat of the

Roman province The Roman provinces (Latin: ''provincia'', pl. ''provinciae'') were the administrative regions of Ancient Rome outside Roman Italy that were controlled by the Romans under the Roman Republic and later the Roman Empire. Each province was rule ...

Byzacena Byzacena (or Byzacium) ( grc, Βυζάκιον, ''Byzakion'') was a Late Roman province in the central part of Roman North Africa, which is now roughly Tunisia, split off from Africa Proconsularis. History At the end of the 3rd century AD, the ...

. The diocese was

center Center or centre may refer to: Mathematics *Center (geometry), the middle of an object * Center (algebra), used in various contexts ** Center (group theory) ** Center (ring theory) * Graph center, the set of all vertices of minimum eccentrici ...

ed on a Roman town identifiable with Henchir-Medded in today's

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. *

Titular bishop A titular bishop in various churches is a bishop who is not in charge of a diocese. By definition, a bishop is an "overseer" of a community of the faithful, so when a priest is ordained a bishop, the tradition of the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox an ...

Jan De Bie of

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...

. *Titular archbishop

Sergio Obeso Rivera Sergio Obeso Rivera (; 31 October 1931 – 11 August 2019) was a Mexican prelate of the Catholic Church. He was Archbishop of Xalapa from 1979 to 2007 after serving as Bishop of Papantla from 1971 to 1974 and then as coadjutor in Xalapa from ...

(1974 – 1979) *Titular archbishop Bernardo José Bueno Miele (1967 – 1972) *Bishop Honorius, is attested in the archaeology, and may be the bishop of the same name known from the synod called in 484 by

Huneric Huneric, Hunneric or Honeric (died December 23, 484) was King of the (North African) Vandal Kingdom (477–484) and the oldest son of Gaiseric. He abandoned the imperial politics of his father and concentrated mainly on internal affairs. He was m ...

, the

Vandal The Vandals were a Germanic people who first inhabited what is now southern Poland. They established Vandal kingdoms on the Iberian Peninsula, Mediterranean islands, and North Africa in the fifth century. The Vandals migrated to the area betw ...

. *Bishop Baleriolus, known only from a mosaic in the basilica.

Basilica

Inscription Epigraphy () is the study of inscriptions, or epigraphs, as writing; it is the science of identifying graphemes, clarifying their meanings, classifying their uses according to dates and cultural contexts, and drawing conclusions about the wr ...

s in the church are dedicated to Bishops Honorius, and Baleriolus, a deacon Crescentius and the Presbyter Emeritus. Had an eight lobed font The basilica was built to memorialize a group of local martyrs.
Mosaic
now housed in th
Enfida Museum
with a prominent Cross and the list of martyrs was uncovered in the basilica. Others commemorated in mosaics include Bishops Honorius and Baleriolus, a deacon Crescentius and the Presbyter Emeritus.J. Patout Burns, Robin M. Jensen, ''Christianity in Roman Africa: The Development of Its Practices and Beliefs'' (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2014) p432.

External links

*
Catholic Hierarchy

References